The Boy and the Ghost
by Nike Athena
Summary: It was cold. It was always cold, but this time Ivan was sure he would die of it.


It was cold. It was always cold, but this time, Ivan was sure he would die of it. Lying in the early December snow (snow that was curious mixture of equal parts melted snow, fresh snow, and resulting ice), and from multiple gunshot wounds, his blood was slowing pouring from him and staining the crystalline white around a pure and enduring red.

He breathed slowly out; it seemed like an important thing suddenly, and he hated it when breathing seemed like a luxury. The next breath in was equally a precious commodity, one he wasn't sure he'd have for long, anyhow. He could do nothing about the armies that had breached him, and were marching, now, upon him tenfold; it was one thing to count on his people to protect him, but it was another entirely to be shot in the head, and left to die like a dog in the streets.

"Баю…баюшки… …баю," With each rasping breath out, each word slipped out; it burbled with the blood that blocked his throat, and seemed to fit the smoky, dark rooms, delicate, petal-like lips that sung them once to him, long ago. The feelings were the same; he felt the warmth of his body (that surely signified life as the wind and whiteness around him signified death) leak into the still, crackling air around him, and that comfort of being continuously (but barely) alive was retreating as slowly as those arms had from him.

"Не… ложися… … на краю." He was relatively sure he was hallucinating the voice that sang with him, because no one would come rescue him. No one ever had. So he continued to sing, steadily aware, now, that life-blood was dribbling from his mouth.

"Придёт серенький волчок," The voice was of wind, of snow, and frozen things, growling like the shifting of ice lying across lakes, and Ivan was certain he was hallucinating now, because he was no longer singing, and no one ever came to rescue him.

"Он ухватит за бочок, И утащит во лесок," A mouth fumbled across his in something that was nothing at all like the gesture of warmth that person with petal lips had bestowed upon him all those years ago; it licked the blood, with a bleak, animal hunger, from his lips, pillaging the flaxness of his mouth from whence that comforting flow came.

"Под ракитовый кусток." An arm was wrapping around his back, lifting him as ponderously and unceremoniously as the advent of the winter; his head fell, no longer able to support itself with an adult strength, against the cold metal regalia pinned to rough-spun uniform wool; lips rasped against the coagulating gunshot on his scalp.

Ivan would have looked up, but he supposed, at this point, nothing really mattered anymore. If the person (who had smelled of sunflowers, whose lips had been a soft and welcoming respite, an interlude, and had held him as surely as anyone would when they loved you) Ivan often dreamed of had ever really existed, they would have come and found him, as surely as this specter had. His fingers, calloused, knotted, and chapped as they were from the cold and work, were still as a child's as they curled in the lapels of the uniform.

The specter didn't speak, and, Ivan supposed, that really didn't matter, either. Because, even though life and consciousness was quickly seeping from him, the one thing he always knew he could rely on had found him, and, sooner or later (though Ivan could do nothing himself, and the thought drew a bitter, blood-flecked smile to his lips), his enemies would fall.

General Winter walked forward, snow crunching under boots heavied from ice and blood, and though Ivan was carried forward (with the weight of the ice, darkness, and death) by force, he knew his enemies would fall. With the weight of the lullaby (sung to him once long ago) on his lips, Ivan began to walk.

Author's Notes: General Winter is to Ivan like the Kamikaze is to Kiku. When things look especially grim, somehow, General Winter always kind of swoops in to save Ivan. And, then, at the same time, kills Ivan's crops with early frosts, cattle, and lots of people with hypothermia. Dude, talk about love/hate relationship.

The lullaby Russia sings was ripped shamefully from Wikipedia. I know virtually no Russian, and definitely no Russian lullabies, so Wikipedia had to be my brain this time.

Omake: The Patriotic War (or, The War of 1812, or Why Napoleon Went on to Lose Waterloo).

Napoleon laughed rather gaily as he inhaled deeply the surging, frigid air around him. He turned to his huddled, collected men, shivering miserably in their splendiferous (and yet oddly ill suited; lie something was missing, but he wasn't sure what) uniforms, and, regarding them with proud, flashing eyes, had begun to launch his new address speech. The men had obviously expected some form of comforting words for them in the face of such unusual inclement weather, and were rather confused, and not to mention the least bit frightened, when their intrepid commander gave them nothing of the sort.

Instead, a rather strangled "_Mon Dieu!" _erupted from his lips, as if he were experiencing a minor apoplexy as he regarded Ivan, smiling crazedly as he advanced on the fit of French troops with a pipe clutched in one hand (Napoleon had been sure to take all armaments from the felled Ivan), blood dripping rather alarmingly from him, leaving a trail of crimson, and supported by a ghastly white figure.


End file.
